Doubt Truth to be a Liar
by Theano
Summary: Something's rotten in the realm of Asgard.
1. A Horse With an Arrow in its Forehead

**Title: **Doubt Truth to be a Liar

**Author: **Theano

**Rating**: PG

**Summary**: Something's rotten in the realm of Asgard.

**Disclaimer:** None of these characters belong to me (though if Loki comes up for grabs, I'm willing to talk). My sincere apologies to Marvel, Kevin Feige, Alan Taylor, William Shakespeare, and Tom Stoppard. I regret nothing.

**Warning:** Don't read this unless you've seen Thor 2, or unless you actually like spoilers!

* * *

**I. A Horse With an Arrow in its Forehead  
**

Inside, the feast was a bedlam of food and music and revelry, but the stars over Asgard - hundreds more than there had been a bare month before - were silent. Two of the friends stood, leaning down to peer at several small ivory cubes as they spun and danced and landed on the terrace stones with an oddly musical sound. The third had sprawled to the ground in a comfortable puddle of flesh some time before.

"'Tis not natural. Where did you say you found them?"

"Can't remember. It was the night of that feast, you know, the one with the great big - " Volstagg gestured, cupping with both hands.

"Oh, indeed," Fandral replied with a grin. "I remember her!"

Volstagg glared up at him. "I was talking about the roast lamb shanks, you singleminded - "

"Gentlemen," Hogun interrupted, picking up the dice once more. "The question before us is this: Do we track down the owner of these dice and teach him justice - "

"Or," Fandral said with another flash of his winning smile, "do we track down the nearest rich idiot and relieve him of both his wits and his wallet?"

Volstagg grunted. "I say we track down some more of those roasted..."

"Ho, my lord! How fare you?" Fandral bowed as Thor wandered onto the wide terrace to join them.

Hogun bowed as well, while Volstagg rolled his bulk off the ground into his own flourishing obeisance.

"My friends," Thor said with a tired smile. "What game busies you this night? I find myself in need of diversion."

"Does not your lady divert you, lord?" asked Fandral. "Why, I'd never suffer boredom again, if one so fair should grace me with her..."

"...lamb shanks?" Volstagg finished for him.

Thor chuckled. "I could wish her here, but tonight her time is her own. She is meeting with with Erik Selvig and the lady Darcy to discuss their arts. Truthfully, I cannot follow her thoughts on nights such as this. Her mind sees the Nine Realms in ways that perhaps even Heimdall would be blind to."

There was an uncomfortable silence, then Hogun spoke up. "How fares Erik Selvig? There have been whispers throughout the palace of his curious customs."

"The healers say he needs only time and peace. My father has given him sanctuary, and Sif is tending to him."

The dark-eyed warrior nodded, then rolled the dice in his fingers. "We may have a diversion for both you and him, lord. Have a look."

Before Thor could move, though, Fandral had snatched the dice from Hogun. "A wager, lord?"

Thor matched Fandral's grin with one of his own. "As long as there are no gowns involved! What is the wager?"

"Three ones," Fandral stated confidently.

"Why, then, I shall choose three sixes. Your wagers, friends?" Hogun declined with a slight bow; Volstagg belched loudly and waved Fandral off. "Very well; cast, Fandral."

The dice spun in the air. They tumbled to the ground, chiming and twirling like dropped coins, rolled a few times, and came up all sixes.

Time stopped.

"Fandral? Volstagg? Hogun - my friends, what - "

A shape coalesced out of mist and starlight. She wore a pale blue gown, stained with red. Her eyes found Thor's, lifeless and pleading.

_Find Odin. _

"...Mother?"

_Find him, my son. _

A nightingale trilled, a breeze blew up, and the dice kept rolling to stop on three ones.

"Sif and Selvig, eh?" Fandral quipped. "I shall have to ask her - my lord? Thor, where are you off to? Don't worry, I won't make you wear..."

But the prince was gone. Fandral and Volstagg looked at each other in confusion. Hogun knelt and examined the trio of dice again.

_The All-Father sat on a broken throne, his old face scarred from wars long past; weary, patient, sorrowful as they all confessed their treasons._

_Merciful. _

Thor wasn't certain when he had begun to suspect that things were not all well.

Of course he knew Loki was not to be trusted. But when Loki had died - perhaps it had merely been the chaos of battle; grief as well, leavened by pride in his brother's final acts. It was never too late to learn honor.

_They had been punished, of course: Sif to a year of service among the healers; Volstagg, Hogun, and Fandral banned from carrying any weapons other than daggers; and Heimdall - banished. _

Thor stormed into the dungeons, shoving guards aside unceremoniously. There was only one cell left functioning. Behind the barrier field stood a small barque on a raised platform. Within lay a body, lean and pale with dark, tangled hair, still clad in bloodied leathers. He had been neither buried, nor burned. Not even the All-Father trusted the corpse to remain a corpse.

Thor touched one of the rune-carved stones that made up the walls of the dungeon. The barrier field whispered into nothingness, and Thor stepped through.

"Loki." The body did not respond. "I know, Loki."

_Thor had chosen his own punishment. He knew, now, why he could never sit that throne. He had not the wisdom of the All-Father, not the wit of the late queen, not even enough warrior's skill to save his brother from his fate._

_He had offered Mjolnir back to Odin. For a moment, something disconcerting had moved behind the one tired eye, but Odin had merely smiled and declined. "Mjolnir is yours," he'd said, "as is the power to hold it."_

He laid his hand on Loki's chest. The body was stiff and cold, leather and metal, green and black and gold.

Gold. A gleam of gold on a chain around Loki's neck. That wasn't right. His brother had never fancied trinkets, or needed amulets to accomplish his trickery. He wrapped the chain around his hand and pulled.

The tiny links snapped, some flying past the edges of the casket to land on the floor, tinkling like far-off windchimes. He'd first seen windchimes on Midgard, hadn't known what to make of them, until Jane had explained that they used moving air to make music. Midgardian magic.

"Where are you, brother?" Thor whispered. "Guard!"

Footsteps. "My lord?"

"Who is this man?"

The guard blinked at him, then stuttered, "Your - that is - it is Loki, my lord."

The body in the casket wore the armor of a palace guard. Thor recognized him, a man who'd served for many decades in the All-Father's household.

Thor grabbed the guard by the back of his neck, pushed his face down close enough that his nose was nearly touching the dead man's. "Look again!"

"It - it - my lord - it is only Loki's corpse!"

He heard muttering outside the cell, turned to see the other guardsmen exchanging worried looks.

"That _thing_," Thor roared, "is not my brother! Where is he?" He flexed his hands into fists, then looked at them in sudden realization.

The amulet was gone.

Loki's body lay in the barque, pale and dead. No chain around his neck, no trinket gleaming gold against the green and black and long-dried blood.

_Find Odin._

He left in search of his father. And his brother.

* * *

**A/N:** Fair warning, I have very little idea where this is going, or even if I'll continue it. It's meant to be loosely based on _Hamlet_, though I'm far from a Shakespeare expert. This chapter insisted on being written, but I only have vague ideas about what to do with it now. I'm rummaging through both _Hamlet_ and _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead_, though, and having a lovely time!

...I consider the coin-flipping opening of R&G to be totally canon to Hamlet-verse.


	2. Maidens Aspiring to Godhea

**II. Maidens Aspiring to Godheads, and Vice Versa**

The throne room rang with subdued echoes as Thor, with Jane Foster at his side, entered. The lady Darcy tripped in after Jane - sometimes literally, as she looked about herself with wide eyes and open mouth. Hovering behind the ladies was Erik Selvig, attended by Sif, herself followed by Eir.

"My son," said Odin as the party approached the throne.

Thor stopped, silence his only reply.

"My son..." Odin continued, "...is dead. As is my wife, your queen." He gazed on Thor, his brows heavy with worry. "The crown prince of Asgard has renounced his claim." Soft murmurs flittered about, disquiet and rumor.

"I have," Thor confirmed. Mjolnir hung heavy on his belt.

Suddenly Odin stood, startling the entire hall into quiet. "But we have peace, and a great victory!" he thundered, his arms upraised. "For five thousand years the Dark Elves waited in silence, while we thought them dead!" He stopped, the final word ringing around the room: _Dead... dead... dead._

_What have you done to our father, Loki?_

"My son," Odin repeated, and, lowering his hands, smiled gently at Thor. "Everything that lives must die, even in Asgard. My time will come as well. Will you mourn then, Thor, as you mourn now?"

_No_, Thor thought. _I have mourned you already, brother._

Odin's lip quirked as though he heard the thought. "Or will you take up your birthright, and defend the Nine Realms as _I_ have done?"

He found Mjolnir in his hand, as thunder rumbled in the distance. "If the day comes when I must take the throne from you," he said, "then I will do my duty." A long silence greeted his answer, long enough for the shuffle of hundreds of nervous feet to fill the space. "Until then," Thor finally added, "again, I offer Mjolnir back to you."

For a moment, Odin had seemed stooped with unimaginable age. But now he stood straight and strong. His one eye narrowed. "Why?"

"Because you are my father," Thor said. He fought to stand, but the weight of his lie pulled him to the ground until Mjolnir landed with a condemning thud. "And I am no longer worthy to bear it."

The air hummed with a thousand indrawn breaths. Footsteps, light and rapid, followed him as he fled the throne room.

"Thor!"

How could Loki bear the schemes? he wondered. How long before lies layered upon lies like a serpent's scales, until all of Asgard was wrapped and smothered in untruth?

"Thor! Wait, what are you doing?"

"Jane Foster," he said turning to her, gripping her in weary arms, "you must return to Midgard. It is not safe for you here any longer. My brother will see you dead soon."

She gaped at him. "Your brother? But - what - ?"

"Can you not see it, Jane? The man upon the throne of Asgard is not Odin."

"Thor, I don't understand. Loki is dead. He can't hurt us. He can't hurt _anyone_ anymore. And your father extended his invitation for as long as we wanted, and we're not finished studying the quantum gravity interlocks or the neutrino absorption or - "

"_THAT IS NOT MY FATHER!_"

Jane's hands flew to her ears, a look of sudden pain on her face. "Thor! I know you must be broken up about your brother, and - and your mother," she said, lowering her hands and taking his own, "but you just have to accept that - "

"I will accept nothing," he said, cupping her dear face. "Please believe me, Jane Foster." He searched her eyes, finding nothing but worry. "If you will not take heed for your own safety, then at least accompany the lady Darcy home. She has not found much peace or rest here."

"Well, no, not with your friend Fandral trailing her everywhere with those puppy dog eyes."

Thor blinked. "I will speak with him."

"Don't bother," Jane said with a frown. "Darcy says that he's almost as good an intern as Ian. And he can carry more equipment, too."

Thor frowned. So that was what those odd toys were, that Fandral had taken to hauling about. They looked much like strange insects, metallic tripods and loose wires waving about like too many legs and antennae.

"I still do not know what an 'intern' is," he grunted. "You said 'tis much like a gopher, but there are no rodents here..."

Finally Jane's face brightened into a grin, and Thor smiled back at her, relieved to see the light return to her eyes. "I know much seems strange to you here, as I am puzzled by your world. But one thing we do share."

"And what is that?" she replied, a quizzical smile on her lips.

"This." He kissed her, pressing her close to himself.

When they finally broke apart, Jane caught her breath for a moment before declaring, "Right. Not leaving. Erik and Darcy can find their own way home."

"...Are you certain?"

"Are you kidding?" She pulled him into another kiss, the aggressor this time, as she let him know wordlessly that she would not be convinced to depart.

"Then," he whispered, running a strand of her dark hair through his fingers, "doubt not that I love you. And doubt not that I am fighting to save all the realms."

* * *

"This," Darcy declared, "is just _cool_."

"Are you chilled, my lady? Would you like my - "

Darcy waved Viking Errol Flynn away absently. "Whoever built this throne room knew what they were doing."

"My lady?"

"I mean, look at the architecture. It looks like a cathedral!"

"What is a _cathedral_, lady?"

She spun around in place, admiring the way the pillars and aisles led the viewer to naturally focus on the throne. The throne itself, of course, though damaged, was still magnificent. "It's a place of worship on Earth - uh, Midgard. It's where you go for services if you're..." she ended in a squeak as she fell nose first to the ground. "Ow."

Suddenly a pair of disconcertingly strong arms had picked her up, and she found herself the recipient of a dazzling grin. "Sunglasses," she decided. "I need sunglasses for all the ridiculously white teeth around here. Put me down."

"As you wish."

She looked at Errol Flynn sideways, then grabbed her phone again and began snapping more photos. There was going to be a dissertation in all this, she knew it. _The Architecture of Power in an Alien Society_? Or maybe just _Tripping Over Lovesick Puppies, the Viking Adventure Version_.

"...Is there a bird inside this device, my lady?"

"What device?" She turned to look, startled by Blonde-and-Dashing holding fifty pounds of gear in one hand, while he peered curiously at one of Jane's flashy-thingies. Flashy-beepy-thingies.

"Oh, that's just Jane and Erik's quantum-neutrino-magic-finder-gizmo. Ignore it, it probably thinks the whole planet is one big ball of fun."

Errol Flynn's lips moved silently as he repeated her words to himself. He cocked his head at her and asked, "May I borrow this, my lady?" She nodded at him, bemused, and he walked out, leaving fifty pounds of gear teetering on a chair.

She really missed Ian right about now. She wondered if King Odin would allow just one more Earthling to visit.


	3. Smile, and Smile, and be a Villain

**A/N:** Warning: Things I have only a general layman's knowledge of: Comic-verse Avengers, Norse mythology, science jargon, and Shakespeare. All inaccuracies are gleefully owned up to by the author!

* * *

**III. Smile, and Smile, and be a Villain**

It wasn't enough that Darcy had come to her, begging to go back home before she went crazy. And it wasn't enough that Erik actually _was_ crazy and didn't seem to be getting any better.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" Jane demanded.

Thor flipped a page, revealing another holographic page in the massive tome he seemed fascinated by. Three women illuminated the page, dressed in white, surrounding a gorgeously illustrated... spinning wheel? "No," he said, and flipped another page. The World Tree again: pretty as a picture, she thought, because that was all it was. She couldn't imagine how a people with "sufficiently advanced technology" could describe the universe in terms of childish mythology. Numbers _mattered_. Metaphors couldn't make a rocket fly.

"And where's your hammer? You never go anywhere without it, but you just left it there in the throne room! I tried to ask your friends about it, but Volstagg was too busy eating, Fandral was bugging Darcy again, and Hogun just gave me a funny look!"

Another page slipped by, this one occupied by a large wolf. Thor's brow knitted in concentration, and he flipped back several pages and began reading again. "Mjolnir is safe," he muttered. "Worry not."

"Right, because telling me not to worry about something always works!" She crossed her arms and glared at him. "Thor!"

He glanced up, startled.

"You are really not acting like yourself, you know that? What is _wrong_ with you?"

His gaze was so sharp and angry, his eyes full of the thunder he was famous for, that Jane took a half-step backward before she could help herself.

"Nothing," Thor finally said, "And everything. Perhaps I am not the man you took me for, Jane Foster. If I am no longer the son of Odin All-Father, if I am no longer worthy of the hammer of Thor, am I still worthy of your regard?"

Jane stepped away, shaking her head in confusion, and walked out. Had this whole trip been a colossal mistake?

* * *

There was a commotion in the fountain chamber. Thor's pet mortal had asked to visit Sif's patient, and Sif, being confined to the healers' arts for the foreseeable future, had no choice but to comply.

She could hear the sounds of shouting nearby, but could make out no words in all the music of the water. Sif had set up the old mortal's treatment quarters just off the central fountain, thinking that the burble and splash would soothe his frantic habits.

"Magic! Ha!"

She found the socks first, curled around the corner of one of the smaller fountains, soaking wet from spray. Then the belt, draped over the arm of a bronze woman pouring a continuous stream into a tributary pool. The trousers hung from a lower branch of a golden Yggdrasil that dripped dew instead of leaves, while the shirt lay over the eyes of a wyrm spitting water high into the air.

"Don't you know anything about exclusion probability? What you're describing is precisely what I've been looking for!"

A pair of short white pants with small, childishly portrayed thunderbolts hung like a dripping flag from the spout of a unicorn's horn.

"Physical manifestations of superposition decoherence could create echo waves causing unstable microevents in - oh, hello, Sif!"

There were four of them in the old man's quarters, but fortunately only the wizard was unclothed. Sif had no desire to see any more of Volstagg's person than was normally visible under his profusion of beard.

"What are you up to this time?" she asked, squinting at them suspiciously.

"Well, there were these absolutely fascinating - "

"And Thor asked us for information about - "

"Have you been down to the - "

"_Enough!_"

" - causing a Zeno effect suspending a single tachyon in superdimensional - "

"Doctor Selvig, clothe yourself. You three - find another fool for your games. My patient is off limits!"

" - invalidating the Copenhagen Interpretation! Er, what was that, my dear?"

Sif concentrated on the quietly bubbling sound of the fountains. _Admit it, you moved him here for your own sanity, not his._

They were all gaping at her now. "And _what_ is _that_?" she demanded, pointing at a... thing... covered in wires and blinking lights and probably emitting strange Midgardian magics.

"Discontinuation detector," Selvig stated proudly, as if it were the most obvious thing in all the realms.

She blinked at him.

"The continuum as we understand it," he began, as she gathered and handed him his damp clothing. He dressed in rumpled haste, putting his shirt on backwards as he continued talking on about wave functions, virtual particles, and a particularly cruel cat owner.

"Where is Thor?" Sif finally asked.

"With his lady," Hogun supplied.

"Not anymore," she snapped. "She came to me to ask after the wizard - and asked for _my_ help. With _Thor_."

Fandral's eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hairline. "Is she looking for advice on - _oof!_" He rubbed his stomach, glaring at Volstagg, then started again. "Yes. Thor. He has been visiting the Archives around this time of day for the past week, All-Father only knows why. Thor has never been one for the Histories, though his lady's lovely handmaiden - _ouch!_"

"What he means," Volstagg said, fingering his beard, "is that Thor's lady and the lady's handmaiden seem to have swapped hobbies, very sudden-like."

"And what," Sif asked impatiently, "does all this have to do with _you_ three bothering _my_ patient?"

Fandral shot her another gleaming grin. "We wanted to get help from the brave old wizard. He is the lady's mentor, the lady is our prince's... lady, and our prince is not himself of late. The king has asked us to check up on Thor."

Sif looked at them. Then she looked at Erik Selvig, now thankfully dressed and fiddling with the blinking thing. She looked back at the three again. "And how is that going for you?"

"Terribly," Volstagg replied with a long face. "Someone stole our dice."

* * *

High above the cloud piercing spires of the palace of Asgard, a pair of large black birds wheeled and cawed.

In his bedchambers, Odin stirred and muttered in his sleep. Finally he woke with a muffled shout and pulled his aching limbs from the bed. This form was old and tired, and no matter how well or poorly he slept, his knees ached and his hands stiffened in the chill air. He would need to rest - truly rest - and soon. Odinsleep called to him, but he could not afford to succumb.

He knew this body too well, perhaps. Long years of study, of familiarity, of secret practice had helped him perfect an illusion that was far too real. He wondered, idly, if the oldest Jotunns ached this way in their unending wintertime, and then wheezed in useless mirth.

Leaning on his staff, Odin walked out onto the high balcony, listening for his birds. Their calls and shrieks had begun to sound far too much like laughter, of late. Looking into the high clouds, he saw them, two black specks circling, waiting, like carrion birds before a battle.

Finally they swept down, stooping as they broke through the clouds, misty fingers trailing from flight feathers, their sharp black talons gripping small white objects.

The ravens circled him, jeering, and dropped their burdens. Three small, bone-white cubes fell with a musical sound, spinning against the worked stone beneath Odin's feet.

A small black dot centered each cube when they had spun to a halt, and the All-Father suddenly realized what they were. Fascinating game, throwing dice. He smiled and picked them up, ignoring the ache in his back as he tossed them down to show, again, three ones. One eyebrow quirked in suspicion, and he repeated the game, smiling in delighted curiosity as they spun, again, to show three ones.

Truly fascinating...

The All-Father's eyes narrowed. He bent with a tired grunt to retrieve the dice, but before he touched them, the dice suddenly began to move again, ringing like coins, until each upward face showed six marks instead of one.

A pale woman appeared, condensing from mist and dawnlight, transparent except for the bloody accusation dripping down her dress.

"Mother..." he whispered, and for a moment, as he stood, his golden robes flickered to show green. "How...?"

The apparition gazed at him sadly, smiled, and reached out to place one pale, cold hand against his cheek.

_My son, my darling boy. Do you think I do not know what you have done?_


End file.
